


When You Get What You Want But Not What You Need

by Lobo_Steele



Series: Fix You Series [1]
Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse
Genre: Aftercare, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Ambiguous Slash, Angst, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Come Eating, F/M, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Light Dom/sub, Non-Canon Relationship, Not Beta Read, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Subdrop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-29 21:17:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19838668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lobo_Steele/pseuds/Lobo_Steele
Summary: Michael goes looking for love in all the wrong places. Mallory learns she likes control.





	When You Get What You Want But Not What You Need

**Author's Note:**

> Michael's sexuality is open to interpretation. 
> 
> The plot and characters of American Horror Story: Apocalypse belong to Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. The title is from Coldplay's Fix You. 
> 
> Any mistakes are my own.

Life goes on, whether Mallory wants it to or not.

“Little mouse,” she hears Madison snicker behind freshly lacquered nails. “Oh Mallory,” she hears Cordelia sigh.

Unwanted tasks always fall to Mallory and tonight is no exception. It’s a Saturday and there are no lessons, but the witches still gather together to eat. Michael has missed every meal today. His unexplained absence has the house abuzz with concern.

They can’t have their pet warlock languishing away in his room. After all, he’s the next Supreme.

Michael hasn’t been particularly friendly to Mallory in his time at Robichaux’s, but neither has he been harsh. More indifferent to her existence. It stings, considering the fervor he once held for her company.

Mallory stands outside Michael’s door at the end of the second-floor corridor and knocks.

The wood of the door is solid under her knuckles. She realizes the she’s never had to knock on a door in the academy. Most of the girls leave their doors open and Cordelia always knows when she’s coming.

Mallory pushes on the door and is immediately plunged into darkness. Her vision is slow to adjust, she struggles to make out any shapes in the void.

“Get out,” Michael snaps from somewhere to Mallory’s left.

Mallory’s head swivels in the direction of his voice. She has to swallow around the dryness in her throat before she can make a sound.

“I, um.” Mallory hesitates. Her hand is clammy on the brass of the door knob. For a second, she considers abandoning her orders.

But that’s not what this Mallory would do.

This Mallory is obedient, a docile lamb for slaughter. This Mallory hasn’t seen the world destroyed and remade—been held in the icy grip of water dyed crimson with her own blood.

This Mallory doesn’t know loss and resentment.

With effort, Mallory shakes off the numbness of the night that never was. She moves forward into the room. “Are you okay? Cordelia asked me to check on you. She was worried when you weren’t at dinner.”

“I’m serious, Mallory.” Michael’s voice sounds thin, forced from his lips with the last bit of strength in his diaphragm. _“Get out.”_

She keeps walking. The suggestion of his weakness draws her in. Mallory knows that if he really didn’t want her there she would already be burning.

She’s reached the edge of the bed and found the long toes of one elegant foot when a small light flicks on near the head of the bed. Mallory jerks her fingers back from the warmth of Michael’s skin. She sees the door slam shut in the corner of her eye and hears a mumbled silencing spell.

Mallory doesn’t know what she was expecting, but it wasn’t for Michael to be splayed on his bed. He looks strung out and miserable. Blood-shot blue eyes are just peeking out from the edge of his comforter.

“Michael,” Mallory breathes, “What happened? Are you okay?”

Michael lets out what might have been a chuckle. “I’m fine,” he says without intonation, “I’m just tired. You don’t need to check on me. I’m not one of your little witchlings.”

Mallory releases her bottom lip from the grip of her teeth and considers the beads of sweat on his forehead. His blonde curls, usually impeccably coiffed, are damp and lying flat against his skull. “You don’t look fine. You look sick.”

Michael drops his eyes from Mallory’s questioning expression and stares down at the herringbone pattern of the quilt in front of him. That’s new.

Michael has always been confrontational. She remembers the aggressiveness of his questioning during the interviews at Outpost 3 and, in this timeline, the superiority in his posture when he arrived with the warlocks.

Mallory is completely stumped as to what could have shaken Michael so badly that he’s abandoned his distinctive personality traits.

Nothing has happened at the academy, she’s certain she would have heard about it by now. They’re all free to come and go, but Michael has never shown any interest in exploring the French Quarter.

He looks raw, an exposed nerve rubbed against a sharp edge.

Michael’s hands nervously smooth his blankets. Mallory notices that they’re shaking. She’s starting to feel unnerved.

“I need to be alone right now,” Michael confesses.

Mallory can’t hold back her disbelieving huff. She tries to meet Michael’s stare, to better gauge his mental state, but his eyes skitter away. Her eyes scan his body looking for clues.

His jaw has a fine coating of blond stubble. He didn’t shave this morning. His clothes are clean. There’s nothing unusual about—

Wait.

There is patch of dark purple visible at the collar of his shirt. Just above his left collar bone.

“What is that?” Mallory leans in toward Michael and grabs his shirt with her right hand, pulling down on the fabric. Michael goes eerily still as the cotton digs into the back of his neck.

“You have bruises.” Mallory looks at Michael in confusion. The shape is familiar. “Are those fingers? Michael, did someone choke you?”

He shrugs. “They’re not that bad.”

Mallory notes his evasion. She wonders what he might have done to deserve them. She loses a few minutes admiring the dark smudges.

How hard did they squeeze to coax such a shade from his tanned skin? Did it hurt?

Did he like it?

Mallory doesn’t realize she’s spoken aloud until she feels Michael break away from her. His denial is quick this time. “What?” Michael blinks at her. “No. Mallory. Never mind. I’ll heal them in the morning.”

 _He did_.

The realization arouses her. The thought of Michael desiring pain is a sunburst in her mind. She shifts on her feet and feels wetness between her thighs.

“Can you please leave?” Michael whines.

But she can’t. She wants to know more. “I’m not going to tell anyone.”

He makes eye contact at her admission and she waves a hand at his torso. “Is that why you look like this?”

“No one hurt me. They did exactly what I asked. I don’t know what’s happening.”

Mallory recalls an article she skimmed in one of Madison’s magazines: Slutty Girl Problems: Life After 50 Shades.

“You’re crashing,” she guesses. Michael gives her a blank look, so she tries again more confidently. “It’s the loss of endorphins, you’re in drop.”

Michael looks away. Mallory thinks he isn’t going to respond, but he does. “I just wanted to get out of my head. I—we met at church. We went to his apartment last night. Everything was good. I felt good. When I woke up this morning, I felt like this.”

Mallory pointedly does not react to the information that Michael has been visiting the Satanic church and that he picked up a follower to engage in some kinky sex with. A he.

“Okay. Have you dealt with this before?” She’s unsure how to approach this.

Michael shakes his head impatiently. “No. It was the first time I’ve done anything like that.”

“Alright.” Mallory nods her head. “I have an idea of what might help, but I’m not sure you’re going to like it.”

Michael uses what looks like his last remaining energy to roll his eyes. “I’m sure anything would be an improvement on my current situation.”

Mallory steels herself for the lash of his sharp tongue. “Touch is supposed to help. You need aftercare, that’s why you went into drop.” She hesitates. “I could call someone, if you want. Or—”

Eagerness rises in her throat like bile. Mallory feels alarmed by her interest. She hasn’t felt this engaged in months.

Very carefully, Mallory extends her right arm to hold one of Michael’s hands where they rest against the blankets. She admires the stretch of tanned skin over the back of his hand, appreciates the blue network of his veins. It's encouraging when he doesn’t immediately pull away.

“I could help.”

She holds her breath while he appears to mull it over.

Michael clears his throat. “It was a mutual transaction. He’s not someone I plan on seeing again, let alone calling for help.”

Satisfaction floods Mallory. She feels her nipples tighten against the bodice of her black dress. She can smell her musky arousal in the air. She wonders if Michael can too.

Mallory gauges Michael’s reaction as she moves her fingers up the back of his hand to his arm and then his chest. She rests her palm on the ball of his shoulder and runs her thumb across his collarbone—directly over his bruises.

She digs in with the edge of her nail.

Michael’s eyelids droop to half-mast. His breath hitches and his tongue runs across the dry skin of his bottom lip. When he relaxes into the discomfort, Mallory uses the pressure of her hand to guide him over in the bed.

Michael moves onto his left side, facing Mallory as she slips into the narrow bed beside him. The thud of her heels slipping to the hardwood floor is the only sound in the room besides the gentle whoosh of air from their lungs.

Mallory shuffles until their heads are even on the pillows. She moves her right arm under Michael’s ribcage and slides the left over his waist. His t-shirt has risen up his back. Michael shivers when the lace of her sleeve brushes over exposed skin.

When she looks at him again, Mallory notes that his pupils have dilated. His expression is glazed.

“Is this okay?” Mallory asks.

Michael doesn’t reply. She tries a different tack.

_“Michael, answer me.”_

“It’s good,” he croaks. His response to her command is immediate.

Mallory feels a rush of adrenaline with his compliance. It makes her bold. She slots one her legs between Michael’s thighs and presses closer. Heat radiates through the silk of his pajama pants directly to her core.

Michael tenses and squeezes his eyes shut when the top of Mallory’s thigh brushes his groin. It’s instinct to increase the tightness of her embrace—her lizard brain sensing his defeat.

Michael goes limp with the extra pressure. He waits quietly for her next move.

Mallory isn’t sure where she’s going with this, but she remembers reading something about acknowledgment and praise.

“There you go, just relax. You’re doing so well,” Mallory croons as she drags the nails of her left hand up his shoulders. She scrapes over the skin of his neck before taking a grip of the curls at his nape.

“Nnn.” The whimper Michael makes is utterly pathetic. Mallory feels the festering spaces inside of her respond to his vulnerability.

She’s rolling on a high she wasn’t aware she needed.

Her grip on his hair tightens without her permission. It’s a real sob that leaves his rosebud mouth this time. She delights in the feel of his cock plumping up against her thigh.

“Shhh. I’m right here. I’ve got you.” Mallory releases his hair and smooths her hand down his side. She reaches as low as his hipbone before moving back up to his ribs. “Did he let you come?” She questions him.

“Nn-no,” Michael stutters. “I didn’t behave.”

Her intake of breath is sharp in the silence of the room. “How did you misbehave, Michael?”

Michael’s lips tremble at the harshness of her tone. “I wouldn’t let him fuck my mouth,” he gasps. His hips twitch forward as her hand slips under the hem of his shirt to sweep over his lower belly.

Mallory can’t stop the hot spike of jealousy that courses through her at the thought of Michael on his knees for a stranger. Its evident in the way the next question flies from her mouth.

 _“Did you let him fuck your ass, like a good whore?”_ Mallory seethes, pinching the small layer of fat over his abs harshly between her thumb and forefinger.

“Au-ungh!” Michael cries, tears bursting forth to spill down his cheeks. “No. Mallory, I—I didn’t. I only le—let him fuck my thighs.”

Appeased, Mallory releases the clamp of her fingers. Michael’s chest rises up and down rapidly. She watches a tear slide down his chin to the skin of his chest. “Do you want to come?”

“Please, please Mallory, I need it—I don’t—”

“I know, Michael. I know what you need.”

Michael sobs again. He starts to push closer but stops when he notices her harsh glare. “You stay there baby, stay nice and still.”

When she feels him relax, Mallory lowers her hand to the drawstring of his pants. She unties the knot and runs a knuckle over the wet patch on the front of the sleek fabric. “So eager, look how wet you are for me.”

Mallory gives the bulge of his cock a quick squeeze before tugging on his waistband. She pushes the fabric down his thighs, leaving his straining erection on display.

She lightly thumbs the flared head of his cock and says, “It’s so red baby, does it hurt?”

“Yes! Fuck, please touch me!” Michael’s azure eyes are beseeching. “Please, please Mallory, I’ll be so good!”

Mallory didn’t know Michael could beg so sweetly. The thought of making more sweet sounds fall from his lips has her grinding her sex against his leg. The friction makes both of them gasp.

“You can do better than that Michael. I can’t make you feel good until you tell me what you want.”

He thrashes his blond head restlessly before capitulating with a low whine. “Please Mallory, I—I need you to touch my cock. I want to come!”

Michael makes a broken noise when Mallory wraps her fingers around his cock. He fights to keep his hips still as she adjusts her grip. She starts up a steady rhythm, stroking Michael from root to tip, swiveling her hand on the upstroke. A steady flow of precum slicks the way.

Mallory lifts her eyes from the motions of her hand to find Michael watching her with a look of barely contained rapture.

“Mallory,” he groans, hips bucking forward.

“That’s it,” she coaxes. “Just take it, Michael, you’re being such a good boy for me.” A hum vibrates out of her chest as she rocks her clit harder against his left leg.

She can see him starting to unravel. He grits his teeth and little crinkles appear at the corners of his eyes. The muscles in his long neck stand out in stark relief. “You can come baby, come for me.”

Michael cries out at her words, and with a few more strokes he comes all over himself and Mallory’s hand.

Watching Michael find his release has Mallory cresting her own wave. She draws two of her fingers through the come on Michael's stomach and brings them to his mouth. She forces her way past his teeth and presses against his tongue. He takes her offering and sucks the briny taste of himself from her slender digits.

The greedy suction of his mouth pushes Mallory over the edge. She comes with a sharp nip of her teeth to his cotton covered chest.

When Mallory regains herself, she notices that Michael has started to shiver in the cool air of the room. He’s quiet, his orgasm likely pulling him back into a quasi-subspace. She helps him pull up his pants and peel his soiled shirt over his head and uses a dry corner of the sheet to clean his belly.

Mallory rolls out of the bed once he’s settled.

She’s shocked by what they’ve done. By what she’s done. She wants to leave so she can fall apart in the privacy of her own room.

Two steps away from the bed she hears Michael's slurred, “don, _don’tleaveme_.”

He still looks sickly. Frail.

Too concerned to argue, Mallory peels off her soaked underwear and dress and crawls back under the blankets. Michael’s curled on his right side, so she presses herself to his back, hooking an arm over his chest.

“Okay. I’ll stay.” She frowns at the contentment in her voice. “We have a lot of things to discuss when you wake up.” She buries her nose in his back and lets herself luxuriate in the feel of another person.

His presence keeps the melancholy at bay.


End file.
